The Fall of Carthage Page 14

  Soon after this success, the Carthaginians themselves suffered a similar small-scale setback when Hannibal himself stumbled upon the main Roman fleet, whilst he was carrying out a reconnaissance or perhaps mounting a raid on Italy. Rounding a place Polybius calls the Cape of Italy, Hannibal lost the majority of his fifty ships before making his escape. This encounter highlighted the difficulty ancient fleets encountered in trying to keep track of each other's movements and there is no reason to accept suggestions that Polybius has created a garbled account of a mythical action through misunderstanding Philinus' account of the later battle of Mylae. Despite these initial setbacks, both sides remained eager for a major confrontation with the enemy fleet and the Romans were already preparing for this at Messana when Caius Duilius arrived to take charge.14

  The Romans realized that their ships were neither as fast nor as manoeuvrable as their Punic counterparts. The Romans had copied the method of construction, but as yet could not duplicate the skill of Carthaginian shipwrights, and even more importantly the Roman crews were far more poorly trained. It was clear that they could anticipate little success if they relied on ramming to defeat the enemy and that therefore they must depend on getting close and boarding. To this end someone put forward the idea of a new type of boarding bridge, known to modern historians by the Latin word corvus (raven), although no ancient author employs the term and Polybius uses the equivalent Greek word corax. The name of its inventor has not been recorded, so that some have suggested that the man was a Sicilian Greek, a foreigner with whom the Romans had no wish to share the glory of their subsequent success, or even that the inventor may have been the young Archimedes, but these can never be more than conjectures.

  Later sources viewed the corvus as some sort of grapnel, which encouraged some historians to doubt Polybius' description, but the reliability of his account was finally confirmed when Wallinga constructed a viable working model of the engine. The corvus was a boarding bridge 4 feet (1.2 m) wide and 36 feet (10.9 m) long with a knee-high parapet on either side. The last third of its length formed two prongs separated by a long groove which slotted around a 24 foot (7.3 m) high pole erected on the deck of a ship. Pulleys allowed the bridge to be raised at an angle against the pole. Underneath the raised end of the bridge was a heavy, pointed spike resembling a bird's beak, from which the device probably derived its name. When released, the corvus fell onto the deck of an enemy ship, the spike embedding itself into its planking. The groove allowed the bridge to be swung around in a wide arc to fall ahead or to either side of the ship's bow, depending on the direction of the approaching enemy. Once the bridge was securely fixed in the other vessel, the Roman marines could swarm across and overwhelm the enemy crew with their skill as swordsmen, their ferocity and their numbers. It was a simple, practical device allowing the Romans to extend their advantages in land fighting to naval battles, and was to enjoy spectacular success during its brief career.15

  Soon after his arrival with the fleet, Duilius received a report that the Carthaginian fleet had been raiding the area around Mylae, a city situated on a peninsula on the northern coast of Sicily, not far from the Lipari Islands. The entire Roman fleet put to sea and moved around the coast towards Mylae, and as soon as this was reported to Hannibal he prepared his fleet to meet them. Polybius tells us that the Carthaginians mustered 130 ships, which seems more likely than Diodorus' figure of 200. Hannibal himself led the action from a hepteres or 'seven' which had been captured from Pyrrhus in 276. The Romans presumably had what was left of their original 120, minus the seventeen lost with Scipio, plus however many Punic ships captured in the earlier engagement they had been able to salvage and man, as well as any vessels provided by the naval allies. The bulk of ships on both sides were presumably quinqueremes and it is improbable that either fleet was markedly bigger than the other.16

  Polybius tells us that the Carthaginians were confused by the strange appearance of the tall corvus near the prow of each Roman ship, but remained supremely confident of their own superiority over their inexperienced enemy. It was difficult for the commander of an ancient fleet to exercise much control over his squadrons during a battle, but Hannibal seems to have allowed his fleet to get out of hand almost immediately. The Punic ships surged towards the enemy, the great 'seven' in the van. Some of the Romans ships were rammed, but each dropped its corvus, whose beak speared through the deck of the enemy vessel and held them fast. Thirty Punic warships, all those who had first engaged, were grappled and held fast. Amongst them was Hannibal's flagship, attacked by a trireme according to Zonaras, although he tends to use the word as a generic term for a warship and it is more likely that the Roman ship was in fact a 'five', since the difference in height between a seven and three must have been considerable. In each case the Roman marines poured across their boarding bridges and swiftly defeated the enemy crews. Hannibal abandoned his flagship and escaped in a small rowing boat. The remainder of the Carthaginian fleet then took advantage of the superior speed of their vessels and swung around, outflanking the Roman line and attacked from astern, hoping in this way to avoid the corvi. Somehow the Romans were able to manoeuvre to meet this onslaught, and once again any Punic ship which came within range was pinned and held by the 'ravens'. Polybius describes how the boarding bridges 'swung around and plunged down in all directions', but it is not quite clear what he means by this (1. 23. 9-10). A corvus mounted near the prow of a ship would have been able to be dropped ahead and for a short distance to port or starboard, but clearly could not have reached nearer the stern. Evidently a Roman ship seeing an enemy vessel approaching would have tried to turn to bring the enemy within this arc. Thiel suggested that the Roman ships may have been formed into two lines and that it was the second line which turned to face the second Punic attack, but, whilst this suggestion is plausible enough, our sources are too brief to confirm or deny it. He may well have assumed that it was more difficult to turn a quinquereme than was in fact the case, even one rowed by an inexperienced crew and overloaded with a corvus and, probably, marines.17

  The ease with which the Carthaginians were able to disengage and retreat again confirmed the superior speed of their ships, but they had failed to achieve anything positive through this advantage. It was a spectacular success for the fledgling Roman fleet, owed almost exclusively to the ingenuity of whoever had designed the corvus. According to Polybius fifty Punic ships were lost, although our later sources give thirty-thirty-one captured and thirteen-fourteen sunk, figures which may derive from the inscription erected by Duilius himself in commemoration of his victory, the columna rostrata, although this has survived in fragmentary form so that only the first X of a numeral can be read. The tone of the surviving text is typical of the Roman aristocracy's self-promotion, with its emphasis on having been the first Roman ever to defeat a Punic navy, and claiming that in his land operations Duilius defeated all the greatest of the Cartiiaginian forces. The extant texts mentions triremes and has been reconstructed as also mentioning quinqueremes, which may offer additional confirmation for our suspicion that the fleets of this conflict were not exclusively composed of'fives'.18

  The new man celebrated Rome's first naval triumph, decorating the speaker's platform in the Forum with prows (or rostrata) cut off captured ships, from which it later derived its name. When Duilius went out to dine at Rome he was accompanied to and from his host's by a procession of musicians. However, in spite of these great honours, his subsequent political career was not especially distinguished.19

  The Carthaginians were chastened by this defeat and although Hannibal avoided punishment for his incompetence on this occasion, he was executed by his own officers not long afterwards for allowing his ships to be blockaded in a Sardinian port by the Romans. Sardinia offered a good base for raids against Italy and its conquest rapidly became a Roman objective. Otherwise in the next years the Roman fleet mainly acted in support of the army in Sicily and it was not until 257 that another major clash occurred at sea. Like many nava
l battles in this period it was brought on by a chance encounter. Caius Atilius Regulus (brother of Marcus), one of the consuls in 258-257, was with the Roman fleet off Tyndaris, a short distance to the west of Mylae, when the Carthaginian fleet was observed sailing past. It is probable that neither side had been aware of the other's presence until they came into view, and certainly neither fleet was formed and prepared for battle. Nevertheless Regulus decided to attack and headed straight towards the enemy with the first ten ships ready to move, the remainder of the fleet trailing far behind. The Carthaginians reacted quickly and turned on the small squadron led by the consul with overwhelming force. Nine ships were rammed and sunk, only the consul escaping in his fast and well-manned ship. However, as the main body of the Roman fleet managed to get itself into formation and finally reached the enemy the odds began to swing back in their favour. Ten Punic ships were captured and eight sunk, although it is unclear whether this included any of the Roman vessels taken earlier in the fight. Unwilling to bring on a full-scale action, the Punic fleet withdrew to the nearby Lipari Islands. It is probable that the Roman fleet was in the area in the first place to raid the well-placed Punic base there.20

  Ecnomus

  The Roman fleet had steadily improved in efficiency and training, although judging from the ease with which the Carthaginian ships disengaged at Tyndaris their ships were probably still slower and less manoeuvrable than

  I Punic left squadron

  II &III Main body of Punic Fleet with Hamilcar

  IV Hanno's squadron

  1,2,3,4. Roman Fleet 1,11,111, IV. Carthaginian fleet

  the enemy's. A measure of equality in strength had developed between the two fleets and both sides threw massive resources into ship construction in an effort to gain a decisive advantage. In 256 the Romans made their bold, but characteristic, decision to escalate the conflict by mounting an invasion of North Africa. To this end they amassed an enormous fleet of 330 vessels which moved along the Italian coast and crossed to Messana, before sailing south along the Sicilian shore past Syracuse, round Cape Pachynus where they linked up with the main army in Sicily. The pick of the Roman infantry were taken on board to serve as marines and provide an invasion force, so that each quinquereme now had a complement of 120 marines. Polybius claimed that the combined total of the crews and marines in the Roman fleet was about 140,000. The Carthaginians had managed to put together a grand total of 350 ships which sailed from Africa to Lilybaeum, before moving round to Heraclea Minoa. Polybius gives their strength in men as more than 150,000, presumably calculated on the assumption that their crews were roughly the same size as those of the Romans.21

  Many eminent scholars have refused to accept the numbers Polybius gives for the fleets in this and other battles of the war. In particular Tarn and Thiel tried to analyse the narratives of the war and establish the real size of the navies involved. In the case of Ecnomus, they have tended to reduce the total of each side by about 100 ships. It may be that the numbers preserved in our sources are not always accurate, and, as has been pointed out, there has always been an understandable tendency for victors to inflate the size of the defeated enemy forces to add to the glory of their achievements. Yet acknowledging that this may be so does not provide any guidance as to what the actual figures may have been. Analysis of fleet numbers has tended to be very rigid in its methods, assuming that only when specifically mentioned by our sources were ships constructed, manned, lost or captured, when it is very unlikely given the brevity of the accounts of this twenty-three-year war that we can expect such a full coverage of these small details. Ultimately, we cannot know whether or not Polybius' figures are accurate, but do best to assume that they are broadly so. In the narrative of the action he mentions that the Roman flagships were two 'sixes', and we may assume as mentioned earlier that the Roman fleet was not exclusively composed of 'fives' even if these were the majority type. Some of the Roman ships may have been smaller and thus the overall total for Roman crews slightly reduced. It is also not at all clear that the Carthaginian ships carried as many marines as the Roman 'fives', and certainly they did not do well in the boarding actions brought on by the Roman use of the corvus22

  The Romans put to sea ready either to fight a fleet action or to continue the journey to the African coast and stage a landing, since they could not yet know the likely Carthaginian reaction to their move. Amongst the fleet were a number of horse transports, although precisely how many is unknown. They were later to land horses for the 500 cavalry left with Regulus, presumably as well as the mounts required by the senior officers. The transports did not travel under their own power, but were towed behind war galleys, allowing them to keep station with the rest of the fleet. In fact, the Punic commanders had already resolved to fight a fleet action off the coast of Sicily, judging this to be the best way of protecting Carthage itself. In addition, if their fleet was as strong as Polybius suggests, then it may well have been the largest naval force ever assembled by the city and this, with their continued belief in their superior skill to the enemy, may well have encouraged the belief that that they had the opportunity to win a major success over the Romans. The two fleets moved towards each other, within sight of the coast of Sicily.

  Such was the importance of this venture that both of the year's consuls, Lucius Manlius Vulso and Marcus Atilius Regulus, were present. They had divided the fleet into four divisions, numbered one to four and known either as 'squadrons' or 'Legions'. This was simply a nickname and bore no relation to their actual size, and it seems that the four divisions were not equal in numbers. The first two groups were led by the consuls themselves, whose two 'sixes' headed the Roman formation. The other ships from these squadrons took station from the flagships, in line echeloned back to either side, so that each ship's prow lay behind and to the side of the ship in front. In effect these squadrons formed the apex of a triangle, the base being composed of the third squadron, arrayed in line abreast, each ship towing one of the horse transports. The fourth squadron was arrayed in line behind this group and was probably more numerous than the third, for its ships overlapped its line on either flank. Protecting the rear of the formation and acting as an ultimate reserve, this squadron was also nicknamed the triarii. The Roman formation was praised by Polybius for its practicality, being relatively dense and keeping the fleet together, but also permitting it to turn and face a threat from any direction. It was a sign of the improved quality of the Roman crews and the greater experience of their commanders that they were able to adopt such a plan, and there is no good reason to doubt Polybius' account or assume that he had misunderstood what was no more than an accidental formation.23

  The Carthaginians made some changes to their deployment once the Roman fleet came into view, having apparently advanced in the normal battle formation of line abreast. The Carthaginian line was formed with the coast of Sicily to its left. The left wing, one quarter of the fleet's ships, reached forward towards the shore. Angled away from this was the remainder of the fleet; the extreme right wing, commanded by Hanno (the general who had failed to relieve Agrigentum in 261), was made up of the fastest ships and extended beyond the flank of the Roman formation. The centre was led by the overall commander in Sicily, Hamilcar, who had instructed the captains of his division to begin by withdrawing in the face of a Roman attack. Hamilcar's plan appears to have been to break up the compact Roman formation, so that his divisions on the right and left could sweep in and attack the enemy from the flank or rear. This would produce a series of smaller encounters between parts of each fleet in which the Carthaginians might hopefully exploit their skill in ramming tactics and avoid frontal attacks on the corvus-equipped Roman ships. Attempts to suggest a far more complex Carthaginian plan are not convincing.24

  At first the battle seemed to be developing as Hamilcar had hoped. The Roman consuls had judged that the centre of the Punic line was weak -Polybius describes it as 'thinner' which may suggest that there were wider intervals between the ships than elsew
here. The flagships led the charge of the first and second divisions straight at this apparently vulnerable spot, and Hamilcar's ships withdrew in haste, so that a large gap swiftly developed between the consuls' ships and the third squadron, still towing the transports. Deciding that the Romans had been lured far enough forward to isolate the rear of their fleet, Hamilcar gave a signal to his ships to turn and engage. A fierce fight developed as the Romans surged forward and tried to grapple the enemy vessels, inspired by the presence of both consuls who played an active role in the fighting. The Carthaginian ships' greater speed produced some successes and some may even have passed through the Roman line and turned to deliver rams from the stern.25